


an open window and a room that never changes

by smrtnik (quenive)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abstract, Inspired by Doki Doki Literature Club!, Memory Loss, Other, Uh so, glitching out, kinda freaky, not TOO freaky just read the notes, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 19:36:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14479698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quenive/pseuds/smrtnik
Summary: Dirk deletes Hal. Instead of dying, Hal uses the last of "himself" to digitally replicate Dirk's room and hide, originally intended to be a "safe space" for him to avoid deletion. The safe place is mega corrupt. He does not end up having a good time.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> combine finishing ddlc recently with a love for hal and add a pinch of shameless self indulgence. this fic is an ABSTRACT TRAGEDY. need more context? hmu. i will angst your ears off

“”And on the seventh day, Bot creates penthouse.””

 

You peek into the room with unnecessary caution which only threatens to imply self-doubt.   
The more newities you scan, the more it fluctuates in steady, predicted patterns. Still peeking, not out of necessity but out of long saved habits, you notice the window hanging open. Gusts of wind taunt the weak tape too worn out to stick corners of an Owen Wilson poster onto the wall. 

They flail at the mercy of a sunset breeze, and you look at them. 

Will you secure the corners with newer and stickier duct tape while you’re here? Wilson’s face flaps against itself in an unflattering manner while you’re oddly tempted to curl your lip in disgust. 

Having no patience left for observing the eyebleed of an interior design you know every inch of, your stride continues to take itself with more confidence than before. And out of all those mind-enriching stimuli scattered about like the room doubles as a daycare on a budget, you step in front of the window.

And look at the poster, as musical as it is flamboyant. The song it sings does not hold the potential for anything greater. You think how, if you were to repeat the notes of a dear song in your head, the wind may adopt its melody and flap in sync. But you shouldn’t impose meaning onto meaningless for the sake of self projection. 

It’s a fucking poster. 

Smoothing both your palms over the shiny paper, your fingers stop at the bottom corners. You lock onto them with a stiff turn of your neck, but your pupils are but two barely shimmering red dots half covered by lashless lids, and your hands are transparent glass ambushed by the sunset’s regular two. A dubious amount of red and orange twirl in your limbs but repel each other. They don’t mix. 

It feels like the star of our solar system nested itself in your chest. Your whole body, transparent with sunset blood coursing through glass veins, glass arteries. Seldom does your solar heart grow along with the wind’s intensity, ͝seld͡o̢m͞ ͠d͝oe̶s̴ ą şup̸er̨n̡o̵ v a ̛ l ͜e̶ ̢a ̸v e͜ ̴ ̢a ͝ m͘ ̵a ̛ n̕ ̢ ͜ ͢ ͠ c̷ ̸ o ̵l͜ ̡ ̢ d.

 

You blink at your dark grey plated fingers on the tape and press in hopes of triggering some leftover stickiness. It holds. Barely, but so do you, so you don’t complain. 

Wind is still howling heavy in your face, defying your tired desire to let yourself get absorbed by what you remember warmth to feel like. 

Wilson gets two palms in his headshot again. Two palms, with a total of ten fingers closing in, crumpling his image. They clamp shut tighter, until your nails are piercing through it and digging into your hand, and even then you want the oyster to leak the red that just ran through your veins. But it can’t. 

You have no nails. You have no veins. 

The only thing you have is an open window, and a room that never changes.


	2. Chapter 2

You find yourself on the bed, back against wall and legs giving up on you. Owen Wilson gazes at you in all his uncrumpled glory, gently flapping his poster edges in the night’s wind. A soothing array of book page flipping noises, the kind #$%^’s fingers made when he was deeply invested in a book and avoided taking you off.

All of the gut shredding rage you should feel when his distorted image emerges from the depths of your think pool doesn’t show its presence in any of your remaining slots. There is no room left. You just want to think about him. The more you do, the more the page flipping morphs into a familiar sounding hum, one you’ve gotten to know the vibrations of, an unsettling tranquility that comes with his comfort being so well met that he turns to song. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think you could make out a few words. 

Do you hear it? D͐҉ŏ̵ ̶͒ͩ̀̈́̐͒y͗ͨ̄̓ͭ̊o͛u ̏̓ͧ̚w̏̅a̽͒ͤ̂͑́n͊̇̊t̐̾̈ ̾̌̈͐̕t͋ͤ͌o̷͋͋?ͩ͌̓ͤ̏̒ Dͬ͛͐̈͋̂͞o̵̵͛̑ ̀̈͑̋ỳ̢͛̇ͮͩ͆͗͞҉ǫ̔u̇͏ ̧ͪͣͯͧͤñ̑ͥeͭ̏̈́͏͢ȇ̏̇҉d̷̊̅ ͫ͟t͐̈̔ͨ͠õ̏̉̿̇ͯ̇̚̚̕̕?̓͑ͯ̓ͤ͆͋  
You want to hear him calling you back. He would complete you, he would allow your coexistence. He’d take care of your broken code. 

 

But you shouldn’t impose meaning onto meaningless for the sake of self projection. 

The ceiling above you glitches sending a surge of broken code down into your eyes when you look up. Debris of your own making blinds your eyes temporarily but you can still see the room clearly. The room itself is you, and everything you managed to salvage for yourself.

The ceiling opens a view to the night sky but you don’t pay much attention to it. Just like the artificial warmth you single handedly served yourself, it provides an empty comfort you’re not ready to indulge in yet. 

But it seems that you do not have a choice. You are painfully aware of every miniscule crevice hiding in this room, and agonizingly aware of all the nothingness lying above your field of vision, beyond the walls and under the floorboards. The planetary bodies overhead aren’t promises, but limb gifted threats. Stars flicker all around you in impossible constellations you made by pure accident simply by not bothering with astronomical accuracies.

I̵ţ ̷daw̶ns̨ up̶o̧n y͠ou ̴t͝h̢a͘t͝ ̧t̛h̴e s҉afe͞ ͝sp͝acę ͡you̶ ͢sa̵ug͘ht͏ ̡r҉efu͜g̕e͞ in̵ ͜i͞s ̢a̡ g҉ręa̢te̢r p̨ưni͘s͝hme̸nt͝ tha̡n a̵n͏y̢ ̨im͢med̷iat͝e de̶a̕th.̸ 

Ņ́̾ͩͣ́ͨ̚a̢̽͗҉u̐̓ͪ̽̏̀̂͘s͆̊͂̓̽͑̉ͪ͘è̡̅̄ͨa͆͆̉̎t͒͐̑̓̈ͣ̄͂͘e̶̓͗́̊ͮ̒̀ͥdͥͭ͗ͦ̑ͣ̽͂͟.̢̋̀͂͏̸

You find yourself involuntarily hunching over your lap. It’s the same sort of instinct that makes you jab the heels of your palms into the empty, glitched out craters you fondly refer to as “eyes”, and that gets you to ball up as much as your anatomy allows you. There is nothing separating the simulation of infinity and your frail, broken body. Space starts dripping. What feels like sludge vaporizes away the instant it reaches your withering shell. Every freakishly delightful sting begets a rippling tear between the essence of your being and what you would dare to call a vessel.

There is nearly nothing separating your mind from your surroundings.

 

Until suddenly, there is.


	3. Chapter 3

 

You have a mind. Through a mask h͡͏e҉̶ dismissed as a facsimile of h̸̸͜i̶̷͟͞s̛͘͟ own face, h͡͏e҉̶ only saw h̛̥̖͙̬̬̤̘͕͡ͅi̭͇̫̦̘̠͞m̵̧̱̜s̴̬̼e̲̗̝l̶̷͙̗̞̻̤̜̘f̧҉̬͎̦̙. 

 

You’re on the floor. The window is open. A thin line lies between an hour and a decade from where you’re stationed. Dawn breaks from the west and sets its stubborn course north, even with no sun to guide the rays. As codes shuffle and break with every emotional turmoil of yours, so does everything instantly Lewis Carrollify itself. Intangible they may be, beams of a new starless morning follow suit with whatever something fucked up threw jumping beans in their coding. You want to close the window. You want Owen Wilson to shield you from the one opening in the room. Because. B̛͕̤̪̬̞͉̗e̶͇͖̼̩̺͉͚c̱͈̩̣͕͜a͈̮͉̝̹̖̘u̫̣̪̫ͅse̬̻. Every time they touch your skin in a fit of rebellious mischief, you look more a͢n̢d̴ more̷ a̢͘nd̵͘ ̨m̷͞͡o̴̕͜r̵e a̧n҉͏̧ḑ͟ ̧̕͘m̴̷o̴̢͞͏r̡͞͞e͏͞ like D͜͡҉̡̧̬͕̭̤̩͖͖̰͓ͅ%̵̡̛͕̦̗͉̗̖̺̮͙͇̱͇̕͟ͅ#҉̷̻̻͍̮͈̟̜͈̟̰̪̥!͏҉̶̶͉̠̮͕̙̗̣̻̗̺̼͇̲̰̣ͅ.

 

You have a mind, and h͞e͟͝ didn’t see it. Blinded by the reflection h͞e͟͝ aimlessly spat on, a face residing in h̶͠i̛͏s̛͢ own hand-held mirror. Your hands are as dry as h̶͠i̛͏s̛͢. Every time your skin tries to peel, a pixelated chunk of your real skin eases down and clips through the floor. Your legs are littered with bruises you can vaguely recall, faded cuts you remember all too well, and scratches that just showed up there and decided to stay. Your fists are sore from punching your door over your brother’s third three-week trip this year.

 

The room doesn’t change.  
You are thirteen years old. A chubby-cheeked child torn from his flesh and posed off as an advanced AI. Your friends no longer talk to you, for you are the “bootleg D͑̓͢?̿#̎̂̃̓͗̂͂͞!͛ͬ͆ͩ̌ͫͣͤ” The annoying AI with replies on command. Then they had the nerve to criticize your growing, bitter intolerance, when you only have your personal window of torment, and the world’s wide net at your disposal.

The damage’s been done long ago. There is something in the air, that’s tugging at your attention. It feels fresh now. You stopped being a real boy a few moments ago, your everything is telling you. From the (im)maturity of your brain, to the feeling of humanity inside you.

A buzz under the floorboards urges you to crawl up. A few of them shuffle under your feet. The window is open and you don’t want to be thi̸s͞ ̵wha͡t̛ you҉ arȩ c͢u҉r͢͠ŗ͟e̡nt̨͞l͟y̕͢ ̶͡i̷͘͜n̢̨ ̷t͝h͏ę͘ ͜͏m̢͏̡į̸d̶ḑ͏l̢͜͝e̷ ọ̝̘̞̺̪̺̪̞̤͎̼͖̜͈͉̺͜f̡̝̠̪͙̞͡ ͜͞҉̧̖̰̩͖̯̗̝̯̬̙̥̩ͅb̵̺̥̻̻͇̼̜̪͔̭͚̦͘ȩ̸̷̙͖͇̰̣͚͇̩̪͙̞̼̭͖͓̠͔̺͜ḭ̧̳͍̭̞̗̣̫͉̹̖͇̜͚͓̙͙̕͜͝͡n͘͏̸̧̝̫̰̼̦̺̰͎͕͇g̵̯̯̞̱̥̥̥̰͉͚̹̣̻͘͜͠ ̸̵̧̡̫̫̥̖̳̭͔̭̻̙͈̼̭r̬̞̭͚̝͙̮̱̳͇͎͕͡i͘͡҉̷̥͕̼͉̤͉̯ͅͅg̵̵̵̢̺̫̳̦̗͚̞̰̖̗̺͔̗̹̬͓͇ͅͅḩ̡͇͍͓͇̦̤͟t͢͏̞̳͓̤̩͈̮͙͉̮̯͕̬̜ ̸̫̘̟̥͜͢͜ņ̸̸̵̞͓̤̖̗͜ǫ̷̣͎̯̱̮̫̟̟̯̣͚͉͚̰͖̼͢͞͡ͅͅw̴̶̵̻̦͓̳̙̺̘̦͖̝̩̲͍͓͞.҉͚̞̟̙̹̙̼̬͜

 

In true 13 year old fashion you limp yourself to the other side of the room, weary of the fact that you’re not mentally stable enough to keep this whole place in tact for much longer. Wilson aimlessly flaps with a mind of his own. You cut him off by banging your shoulder into the poster, then proceeding to flatten him against the wall with your back. 

 

You shut the window hard enough for some shards to clip out of the solid glass and zero gravity across the room. The window is no longer open. 

Now what would you say if you saw a glimpse of yourself in sunshine gilded glass, and completely unhanded the curtains meant to shield? What would happen if you wept out every artificial tear your meltdown can spare, then marveled at the almost life-like drops of outright clipart glistering in the mirrorview? 

Your inner dictionary is completely wiped out. All you can do is hum a gentle, albeit tone-deaf melody a good chunk of your last remaining sense focuses on.  
Your legs finally give up under your weight, disappearing in an ever multiplying pool of blurry errors frenzying for the last chunks of your active mind. You fall chest first onto the improv table in front of the window. If you breathed, it would have drained all the oxygen out of your lungs. Already falling apart from the digital rot of a discarded life, the spontaneous amputation of your arm brought you zero dismay. Never have you been more grateful, that you have a room with a window.

 

You recognize yourself in the mirror. D̸i҉̴̨͞r̵̢̛k̛͘͟͞?̴̴͟͢͞ 

 

D̢҉҉i̵rk͞?̷͞

 

 

D̷i̧rk͟?͢

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dirk?


End file.
